i am beginning to seriously resent books that i read and then they are shit

[grumpypants]

i accept i am an unpublished writer etc, and therefore a bit of anyone published, but just lost two nights of my life to The Way We Were and it is pure, drivelly, cliched drivelly drivel. How the hell does this stuff make it to the shelves?

Basic synopsis of The Slap so far:
Small annoying boy gets slapped by a man who isn't his father
Small boy's father gets very angry
Lots of people have sex
Some people masturbate
Some people have sex with people they shouldn't
Small boy gets breastfed quite a lot (which seems to be more about the mother getting a boob out than actual feeding)

I think I am going to give up and take it back to Oxfam where it came from.

I think I really liked The Slap becuase it was really relevant at the time - an old lady had smacked ds' hand in the bank, as I was paying something in, and I didn't know until we left, so it raised loads of questions for me - i went back in and told the Help Desk I was so cross!

So agree about When God was A Rabbit.
It started of so well and then just died a death in the middle, nothing really happened.
Jenny penny also just vanished into oblivion and she was the only character I was inerested in.

Ive just finished 'The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks'

OMG!! Brilliant - read it in a week.

What am I going to read now!

I too feel so disappointed by crap books - what an almighty waste of time they are. Lately felt cross about The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse, a quarter baked idea barely filling the description 'novel'/Not that sort of girl by Mary Wesley, not at all tempted by any more of hers - more like a list of plot lines by the end, she clearly got bored/Deception Point by Dan Brown - why did i bother?

but loved All he ever Wanted by Anita Shreve, going to look for more by her.

have to confess I totally love Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell and anything by Sarah Waters is truly fantastic.

you've all inspired me to just give up - into the recycling with The Beach Hut!

I have just finished reading The Donor

awful book

Since having DC1 4 months ago I obviously have much lesss time for reading so resent crap (or even just disappointing) books more as they are wasting precious time. Worryingly, I have The Slap on my pile of books to read. Maybe I shouldn't even bother starting it as nobody seems to have enjoyed it.

This is why I read sci-fi/fantasy.

Yes, me too, and yanbu.

And yet there are constant howls about the awful way readers are treating poor luckless publishers, the great guardians of Quality. Oh really? I think A Discovery of Witches is possibly the worst book I've ever read, ever ever. Yet commissioning editors were queueing for it at Frankfurt. Boak. And I agree about Labyrinth, which is actually less dreadful than Discowitch, but only just, and I too hated One Day and the Jodi Picoult emporium for people too embarrassed to read redtops but willing to soak up their content.

I've made myself a new rule, which is never to even begin something being heavily hyped, something from the front shelves at Waterstones.

YANBU

This is why, like sieglinde I avoid hyped up books/authors and most of those 2 for 3 front-of-bookshop promos.

I did read, and finish, 'The Slap'. Not overly gripped by it, though, and the characters were uniformly appalling. Wasn't remotely tempted to read anything else by Christos Tsiolkas.

I'm amazed at the badness of some books that are on the verge of being 'respectable' literature, if I can put it like that - ie not obvious schlock like Jodi Picoult. For example, I heard someone on the radio lavishly praising Marina Lewycka's 'We Are All Made of Glue' and saying how hilariously funny it is. I picked up a copy in a charity shop, am some way through it, and a) haven't laughed, or even smiled, once and b) can't see what the fuss is about. The writing's pretty average imho. Although I suppose it's all to do with her having had a hit previously - that gives you a profile and some leverage. Similarly, 'One Day' (not literary, I grant you) was also tosh.

The Finkler Question - NOT funny. It is tediously intellectualising about men getting old. I want that time back.

Hated The Slap
Hated One Day (but hated his other one even more)
Hated When God Was a Rabbit
Hated The Interpretation of Murder
Hated The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Kind of relieved by this thread, as my whole book group seemed to love all the above.

Hello MrsDaffodill - also hated One Day - so trite, so obvious and I really hate how people talk about the ending. It was clearly going to happen.

The slap was OK - more of an insight into Tsolokas' obsessions of sex, girls and drugs. All in all it was disapointingly shallow.

Given that I am pretty much with you on them will avoid the others. I had picked up When God was a Rabbit and so glad to have swapped it for the Hare with the Amber Eyes (sorry kazmus) which I am raving about (a little too much...)

yes, Mrs Daff, but book groups always seem to lead to the worst groupthink/Bay of Pigs Syndrome, where everyone drives each other into luvvie lovedom. Agree that those were all dreadful books, overhyped and dim.

ooh i LIKED the slap
and i liked the naughty bits in it.
nice and crude ;)

I agree that there are a lot of bad books out there. This is why you should not choose books out of the Bestseller list, which is full of books written for the masses, frequently on subjects that tug on heart strings like child abuse and death of loved ones.

Remus - I usually agree with you re books but have to say I enjoyed all of "The Girl Who..." books. You should have persevered with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Books I have read recently that were a waste of time

The Finkler Question
Delirium
At the Chime of a City Clock
The Passage
Apathy for the Devil - not fiction, but still
The Gargoyle

and, sadly, many more. Its so hard to get published but there is just so much rubbish.

I tried Cote, I promise. It was just so, so awful though - it was all 'He switched on his 2011 VX1938 computer and drank another cup of 1952 P.O.S.H.39 coffee and answered his 2064 X131313 mobile phone.' Horrible...

DD still has them all upstairs though, so I suppose I could try again - if I dare.

Some of us like nerdy detail

30 pages isn't enough to judge a book as "awful" imo.

30 pages was about 25 more than I really wanted to read! How many pages would you give something that you were hating every sentence of, then?

Btw - I have just re-read Insomnia and suspect that is one that we would agree on! :)

It took me ages to get into dragon tattoo, but it does get better.
Lisbeth Salander is a brilliant heroine.

given up on the finkler question.
might try something random from the shelves - can't be any worse!